JHK’s Three-Act Play, Big Slide
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…
Visit the Big Slide Page to order, perform, or see sample scenes.

Ho ho ho! It’s that time of year again. Here’s JHK’s holiday classic: A Christmas Orphan.

11-year-old Jeff Greenaway hears his mom and dad argue one night after an office Christmas party. He infers from their garbled squabble that he is an orphan, found in a willow basket on the welcome mat outside their New York apartment. Thinking now that his parents are imposters, he steals away to Grand Central Station and buys a train ticket to Drakesville, Vermont, where he intends to start life all over again.Print | Kindle | Kobo (Digital) | Barnes & Noble (Digital)

So, now we are threatening to start World War Three because Russia is trying to control the chaos in a failed state on its border — a state that our own government spooks provoked into failure? The last time I checked, there was a list of countries that the USA had sent troops, armed ships, and aircraft into recently, and for reasons similar to Russia’s in Crimea: the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, none of them even anywhere close to American soil. I don’t remember Russia threatening confrontations with the USA over these adventures.

The phones at the White House and the congressional offices ought to be ringing off the hook with angry US citizens objecting to the posturing of our elected officials. There ought to be crowds with bobbing placards in Farragut Square reminding the occupant of 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue how ridiculous this makes us look.

The saber-rattlers at The New York Times were sounding like the promoters of a World Wrestling Federation stunt Monday morning when they said in a Page One story:

“The Russian occupation of Crimea has challenged Mr. Obama as has no other international crisis, and at its heart, the advice seemed to pose the same question: Is Mr. Obama tough enough to take on the former K.G.B. colonel in the Kremlin?”

Are they out of their chicken-hawk minds over there? It sounds like a ploy out of the old Eric Berne playbook: Let’s You and Him Fight. What the USA and its European factotums ought to do is mind their own business and stop issuing idle threats. They set the scene for the Ukrainian melt-down by trying to tilt the government their way, financing a pro-Euroland revolt, only to see their sponsored proxy dissidents give way to a claque of armed neo-Nazis, whose first official act was to outlaw the use of the Russian language in a country with millions of long-established Russian-speakers. This is apart, of course, from the fact Ukraine had been until very recently a province of Russia’s former Soviet empire.

Secretary of State John Kerry — a haircut in search of a brain — is winging to Kiev tomorrow to pretend that the USA has a direct interest in what happens there. Since US behavior is so patently hypocritical, it raises the pretty basic question: what are our motives? I don’t think they amount to anything more than international grandstanding — based on the delusion that we have the power and the right to control everything on the planet, which is based, in turn, on our current mood of extreme insecurity as our own ongoing spate of bad choices sets the table for a banquet of consequences.

America can’t even manage its own affairs. We ignore our own gathering energy crisis, telling ourselves the fairy tale that shale oil will allow us to keep driving to WalMart forever. We paper over all of our financial degeneracy and wink at financial criminals. Our infrastructure is falling apart. We’re constructing an edifice of surveillance and social control that would make the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels turn green in his grave with envy while we squander our dwindling political capital on stupid gender confusion battles.

The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, not long ago, were citizens of a greater Russia, to discourage neo-Nazi activity in their back-yard, and most of all to try to stabilize a region that has little history and experience with independence. They also have to contend with the bankruptcy of Ukraine, which may be the principal cause of its current crack-up. Ukraine is deep in hock to Russia, but also to a network of Western banks, and it remains to be seen whether the failure of these linked obligations will lead to contagion throughout the global financial system. It only takes one additional falling snowflake to push a snow-field into criticality.

Welcome to the era of failed states. We’ve already seen plenty of action around the world and we’re going to see more as resource and capital scarcities drive down standards of living and lower the trust horizon. The world is not going in the direction that Tom Friedman and the globalists thought. Anything organized at the giant scale is now in trouble, nation-states in particular. The USA is not immune to this trend, whatever we imagine about ourselves for now.

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. His novels include World Made By Hand, The Witch of Hebron, Maggie Darling — A Modern Romance, The Halloween Ball, an Embarrassment of Riches, and many others. He has published three novellas with Water Street Press: Manhattan Gothic, A Christmas Orphan, and The Flight of Mehetabel.

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To tie the events in Ukraine into something that first appears irrelevant, a bunch of Americans and others who are involved in English-language film making rejected a cinematic version of what is happening in “Little Russia.” “The Square,” a documentary about the events in Tahrir Square in Cairo, which bear more than a passing resemblance to the recent events in Freedom Square in Kiev, was thought to be a favorite for Best Feature Documentary. It lost to “20 Feet From Stardom,” a movie about backup singers. The “liberal activists” in Hollywood decided they liked the happy movie about entertainment better.

There was also some research from Michigan State University that asked “With friends like these, who needs democracy?” It found out that countries that fought civil wars and had other countries giving aid to the winning side were less likely to have more democratic governance after the war than countries where the winning side didn’t get assistance from outside. Consider that in the case of Ukraine.

this entire affair is a transparent attempt to limit Russia’s’ access to a warm water port. this is purely ridiculous, and dangerous.
leave aside any political considerations, do we really think the Russians are going to give up access to the Black Sea, and thereby the Mediterranean?
do we really need this sort of problem? will this work out for the best? does it serve any actual geo-political interests? does it even serve our economic interests? at what point does the math just not work out?

a cost benefit analysis is sorely needed here, an analysis which takes into account the interests of the American people as a whole, not just the Masters of the Universe ensconced in the NYC/DC power clique.

The more unstable Russia and Ukraine are the better it is for the US – one way or another. The dollar has a little longer staying power.

And who cares about the American people? Or any other people for that matter. Since when do “people” matter? Majority never matters and it never rules. It is always the minority, and a very small one that matters and rules, and the more extremist and ruthless this minority is, the higher the chances for it to win whatever it is after.

I am surprised that some people seem surprised at the US actions. Did anyone really expect anything different?

I am glad to see Putin is cool as a cucumber, I am sure he is not surprised. I am not a supporter of any government, but it is good that Russia has a “moderate” president in power, all other things aside. Someone new and “hungry” would have made things worse.

People on both sides should stop being naive and realize that any and all “powers” would only “care” about its citizens to the extent it allows to keep labour and services provided to them. The main objective of any power is to stay in power and accumulate more and more wealth. If stability is the easiest way to achieve this, then stability will prevail. If “surveillance” is the way to achieve it, and when resources dwindle, stability is not an option and surveillance becomes necessary, then we get a difference scenario. Why didn’t we get surveillance 10 years ago? Technology was there already. It was not really necessary, or at least the “power” did not perceive it as necessary yet. Things have changed since then, and the general populace became a little more informed and harder to control – so we immediately get all this surveillance cameras installed everywhere except our rear ends.

We should all stop thinking governments are there to protect their people. Follow the money or “follow the path which ensures power stays in power”. Thinking otherwise can prove dangerous on more than one level for all of us.

It’s like believing that the healthcare system is there to help you. It is there to make money. if it does not harm you in the process – be thankful and celebrate. Instead, people are “demanding” and “expecting” better care, etc. etc. How can anyone be so naive and so trusting?

Exactly why the idea of energy independence is such a sham. They never tell you when they talk about exporting oil that America still imports 60% or more of the oil it uses. The exports would simply be to take advantage of price differentials so as to make oil companies more profits. But every barrel exported would have to be offset–how they never say.

It’s the obvious omission of simple, irrefutable facts that makes you think that the media is rigged. Occasional mistakes can be understood; the systematic refusal to address obvious truths and all context has got to be willful manipulation.

No problem UFIA, I need to be slapped down now and then anyway. I’m commenting on a lot of stuff I really know nothing about … main problem is I’m snowed and frozen in place here, waiting for spring, and its making me nuts!

The system we are in is full spectrum dominance financially and militarily. Its another re-enactment of the 1-2-punch of neoconservativism and neoliberalism.

The Ukraine is an economic basket-case ready for the IMF lending treatment. They will get a huge loan they can’t pay back at the expense of the EU and then their public sector will be totally privatized.

By getting through the back door into NATO we get to fight Russia. The Fed will keep pumping out money at the tax-payers expense.

The other goody we get is to set up missile sites on their border.
Putin got in the way of the US going into Syria and Iran. But, hey nothing personal.

We also want to get control of the gas pipelines too.

We want to split Russia from the EU so we have total dominance over them.

Obama’s “red line” in Syria wasn’t nearly embarrassing enough, so he is now going for the gold in Sochi…er….Ukraine. I’m guessing he’ll finish out of the metal round and that Kerry’s long face will get even longer….

The EU is like the US–the actors are not the populace. There the people in charge are so bought off by the US government and the ties they have to US multinationals and banks that they can hardly imagine not genuflecting in Washington’s direction. They or their children have attended US universities, and they have imbibed neoliberalism from US sources. They fear their own people, each other, Russia, and immigration from the Middle East and Africa, so they look to the power of the US to keep the good times rolling for them and their cronies. Basically, as the US loots the planet, the big players in Europe are the first in line to get their cut. This prevents them from having to bamboozle their own populations into going out and getting the loot for themselves. It’s a thoroughly ugly, cynical business, but it pays them well.

Quite as Jim Kunstler says of America in his post above:
« We’re constructing an edifice of surveillance and social control that would make the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels turn green in his grave with envy … »

Speaking of Goebbels’ dreams, In the EU we are beginning prosecutions of the American Wikipedia site, which turns out to be rather conclusively proved as a CIA ‘Trojan Horse’ site for inserting lies and hoaxes on US-targeted topics … and thus Wikipedia is committing fundraising fraud against Europeans, by hiding who they are and not registering properly as a CIA front company.

Here, report (in English) that Finland police are using as they begin prosecution of the CIA’s Wikipedia, written by a Polish Jew who was a Harvard classmate of America’s top leaders … report lays out the whole Goebbels-Wikipedia system, including the ‘Twenty major techniques of CIA – Wikipedia deception’ – ‘CIA Wikipedia fraud Finland police report’:homment.com/FB3PjBQ2DF

The citizens of Ukraine aren’t scraggly-bearded jihadists, so there’s likely to be little public support for boots on the ground in Kiev. Of course, there are plenty of pre-Xers or -Millennials or whatevers still spoiling for a chance to go “toe to toe with the Russkies,” as Major Kong put it. Indeed, there was a sort of comfort in the Cold War era. There was one enemy — a country with a uniformed army, not scattered scraggly-bearded cells armed with a nihilistic theology. It was a simple matter of C.C.C.P. and us of mutually assuring each other of destruction, settling our differences in hockey games, and boycotting each other’s Olympics. Them were the days.

Not much to say regarding the Ukraine crisis but I found amusing one off-hand comment made in one of the Sunday morning talking head shows. The panel discussion had opened right after Governor Brown had been queried about several subjects including the legalization of marijuana in California, and an earlier interview that had focused on what had happened in the Ukraine. One of the talking heads mentioned that it might be a good idea to have a few of us alert the next time the Russians pulled off a stunt like they did over the weekend in the Ukraine.

The saber rattling is hardly limited to the NYT. Obama is already being attacked from the right in this country for failing to stand up to Putin. John McCain – probably still upset that we didn’t send the Marines to Syria – said yesterday that “we are all Ukrainians” and called on the President to spell out the “costs” of Russian intervention in Ukraine. I suspect what he wants is for Obama to tell Putin “if you do X, then the US and NATO will have no choice but to engage, militarily, in Ukraine.”

Similarly, Senator Lindsey Graham called the President “weak and indecisive” and claimed that this invites aggression. Graham wants to use the crisis in Ukraine to revisit missile defense in Poland and eastern Europe, to expand the “noose” of NATO around Russia, and, of course, to criticize Obama on his latest defense budget (apparently it’s not enough for the US to spend far more on its military than the rest of the world combined; defense contractors need even more!).

Apparently these folks forgot that wars are tough; even “cakewalks” like Iraq have untold dangers and consequences, and of course after 12 years of American military intervention, Afghanistan is barely a functioning country outside of Kabul. What makes these neocons think that beating the drums of war on Ukraine is a good idea?

“What makes these neocons think that beating the drums of war on Ukraine is a good idea?”

Umm, because the entire underpinning of the US/EU economy is based on the military-industrial complex? Does anyone think the Fed, Euro and associated member banks would last a moment without support of the petro-dollar?

We are all enjoying the last days of empire. The mere fact that the ‘Net still works, food is on shelves, and gasoline is available at local stations is in itself a miracle of our modern age.

When the annals of history are examined, I believe they will note that 2008-2014 and the ascension of BHO will represent the high-water mark of the centralized US security state. Further, I think Syria will be recorded as the absolute peak – going forward, the trend will inevitably be towards a slow, but steady, loss of prestige and control.

The problem with predicting decline and collapse is not necessarily due to the resiliency of the status quo, but the willingness to consume all reserves in order to perpetuate BAU just a little bit longer. Syria will turn out to be the peak, with Ukraine demonstrating that the trend will now be downward.

Once the trend is underway, all the predictions Jim and others have made about eventual localization will be underway, with a steady arc describing the progress as we complete our national journey.

“Umm, because the entire underpinning of the US/EU economy is based on the military-industrial complex? Does anyone think the Fed, Euro and associated member banks would last a moment without support of the petro-dollar?”

I for one believe the economy could function just fine without that support (though not without significant disruption in the short-term transtion). The problem is not that the economy MUST rest on a foundation of petro-dollars (let’s face it, there was such a thing as “the economy” prior to the 20th century); the problem is that those who are in power – political and economic – have gained from that economy and thus have a vested interest in seeing it remain as long as possible (which is, I believe, your point in noting that the status quo will consume all resources to buy a little more time).

My fear is not that we cannot have a functioning economy without it resting on a foundation of petroleum, but that the transition from that petroleum economy to whatever comes next will be dramatic – and traumatic – for a sizable chunk of the world. A “soft landing” can be engineered to some degree, but it would require the powerful to see beyond their own self-interest and plan for a future that differs from their past. That past made them rich and powerful, and thus they have no incentive to even think about a different future, much less take concrete steps to try and put it in place.

I see a world full of conflict emerging, with more and more folks fighting for an ever-shrinking pie as the powers-that-be try to squeeze out every last ounce of profit from that pie. “Income inequality” in the US is one result of that trend. In other nations, starvation will come sooner to those left out of the spoils. The long-term question is what comes next, economically speaking, and in the short term, the question is, to what extent do Americans want to get involved where things are beginning to fall apart? I am hopeful that Americans will stand up to the petro-dollar-beholden powers-that-be and tell them to stay the hell out of the mess in Ukraine. But I fear that the shills for the military-industrial complex will shame our leaders into doing something stupid for fear of being called out as weak or as Putin’s appeasers.

“I fear that the shills for the military-industrial complex will shame our leaders into doing something stupid for fear of being called out as weak or as Putin’s appeasers.”

Awe, but here’s the rub: in order to challenge Russia and/or China, the US/NATO won’t have enough leeway to effectively mount an offensive campaign without a declaration of war.

This country hasn’t had a formal declaration of war since 12/8/41 – all conflicts since that time have conveniently omitted that important clause. The reason, of course is because we were only fighting (a) weak, 3rd rate powers, proxies or otherwise; and (b) we weren’t fighting to win, but rather to simply contain. Containment is the preferred technique when the objective is to siphon as much wealth off to associated grifters as possible.

But a declaration of war is an altogether different animal, because it typically includes the important authorization of the use of force “by any or all necessary means”. Swirl that around in your mouth a bit and savor what it means, especially with regard to nuclear armed land armies in Eurasia (to wit: never get involved in a land war in Asia).

You see why this is a non-starter? So, declaration of war is off the table – it will never be used again post-Trinity, for the obvious reason that a conflict will simply escalate to the point where each nation is destroyed in minutes/hours.

So all the US/NATO is left with are these weak-ass UN style pronouncements that have been used repeatedly in Serbia, Iraq. Afghanistan, Libya, et al. But Russia/China are clearly in a different league as those pushovers.

That means, they will continue to push because their objectives really ARE existential with regard to resources and fossil fuels, and we’ll continue to back pedal because we can no longer back up our bluster.

The BHO period will be noted for such trivialities as gender and sexual orientation politics, with a debauched population of land whales busily inking themselves with the mark(s) of the beast while they waddle along and myopically stare into the ether world of disreality.

In the meantime, anyone paying attention can sense that once a real trend is underway, it will continue until its logical conclusion. Peak energy, environment and economy have got us completely boxed in – all we can do is get busy preparing for what is coming down the pike.

“The BHO period will be noted for such trivialities as gender and sexual orientation politics, with a debauched population of land whales busily inking themselves with the mark(s) of the beast while they waddle along and myopically stare into the ether world of disreality.”

I’ll agree with unirealist in saying that there is a germ of a priceless gem there. But debauched I don’t think so. Being debauched requires more effort than most people care to give life except for a very narrow age group below a certain weight. Surfing porn on the net doesn’t count; for anything. Being a land whale is incompatible with debauchery.

The former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld called Obama “feckless” when Obama vacillated indecisively when threatening to dismantle the Assad regime, but didn’t do anything.

Now it’s Ukraine – we’ll see how “feckless” Obama is, again.

The EU is about to cut their own throats, as it’s the Russians who are supplying them with the majority of their energy. So stupid. Any sign of war, EU will start paying through the nose for fuel, causing the prices to rise, subsequently prices in the US will rise, after all, we import 9 million barrels per day, every day, 3,285,000,000 barrels per year, year after year, and think the merry-go-round of tankers will keep coming to Houston because we are so entitled!!!

I saw a bumper sticker the other day – it had a picture of Bush waving and the words, “Miss me yet?” I miss Rumsfeld too.

By now, not just the politicians are losing face but so are the American people. How many more times can the so called leaders of the US afford to be caught manipulating other nations’ affairs so blatantly? How long before a super power with long range strike capacity determines that American citizens have no interest in reining in their government and it’s military – and are no less an enemy?

Hi, I am new here. I never right any comments because I do not have much useful to say, but the situation is getting so ridiculous that I feel like saying something. This continuum of idiotic behaviour from the “leaders of the `free’ world” only makes me think of Winston Churchill’s quote: “I see little glory in an empire which can rule the waves but is unable to flush its own sewers”. Nothing changes. And this time around, going medieval would be the least horrible outcome… Humans never learn

As a boomer, I can’t understand how my parent’s generation let it all go until it was too late. Did Merkel just sign up to play Neville? We can hope this doesn’t end really badly, but hope is a crappy policy.

Neville is a hero – which means sometimes playing the villain. While England dithered under his “pacifism”, they were quietly and frantically building up the RAF. Churchill is the real villain for declaring war against Germany who wanted nothing but peace with him. Of course the world calls him a hero.

Hi BT, I’m not so sure these are given conclusions at this point, but I agree with your perspective regarding the seemingly foiled plans behind the coup in Ukraine. The US thought it was clever when the interim puppet govt. of Ukraine was installed:

“The Ukraine is an economic basket-case ready for the IMF lending treatment. They will get a huge loan they can’t pay back at the expense of the EU and then their public sector will be totally privatized. By getting through the back door into NATO we get to fight Russia. The Fed will keep pumping out money at the tax-payers expense.”

I watched an interview last night which is about a month old from James Rickards… Anyhow, the Fed might be done with printing… the economy never recovered and the blowback from all the surplus binary bucks is evident – no new jobs at home, failed emerging market investing schemes. Big speculation here, but maybe this is why the U.S. is blustering so hard against Russia. It’s the pickle so many warned about for so long… if the Fed stops printing, we collapse… if they don’t stop printing, we collapse even harder in the future. And as the loveable meatball Gerald Celente constantly says, like a broken record, when all else fails they take you (us) to war.

So maybe the question is, from PCRs perspective, whether the government chooses to save the banks by taking the country to war, or lets them fail. Either way, I’ll go out on a limb and say there aren’t any options left, right? If the banks fail, we ain’t just simply gonna have to struggle a bit. The country is fucked if they fail.

So after the US military gets its ass kicked by goat herders in central asia, retreats from Afghanistan, the leaders decide to go pull a few hairs from a sleeping grizzly bears’ ass and see what happens. Brilliant.

Absolutely on the money, James. We spread the dough around, sent in the goons and the bimbo!!, covertly trying to midwife the deal, cut accidentally slipped with the forceps and ripped open the mom. We slept with the boxer, the nazi and the others, and thought we had a choice who to crown… but what the fuck did we know! Serves the idiots right… and now they a bitching at Putin for trying to clean up their SHIT! What thankless assholes. Fuk em all!

And let us not hold our breath for phones or anything else off the hook at the big house; the american sheep are already pussy-whipped, or is the proper term, Cuckold… sitting around watching as our sexy leader fucks everything else in sight.

James,
Not that important to you, you mean. I am lucky to live in Massachusetts, and have two wonderful nephews, who have two great mothers – my sister and her wife. I can assure you that it is important to those boys to have a family, just as their friends and classmates do.

So excuse me for “fretting about gay issues.” In the ’60’s we fretted about race issues, now schools are no longer segregated. I guess you’d say that was “just not that important”, either.

Not important to me either. Sorry to hear that gays are so hypersensitive that they constant attention. There are more important things, for example…

Not trying to be crude, but as a heterosexual who really hates this “shaved crotch” phenomena, I’m starting to feel like a persecuted minority. Those of us with pubic hairs have become the subject of shame and ridicule, and I demand my rights. I’ve decided to “come out,” and I hope others will join me – especially Hollywood movie stars. I’m hairy and I’m proud!

I’m planning on traveling the country, offering lectures and seminars on this issue, and I expect to appear on talk shows like “Fox and Friends.” At the very least, we need a “Hairy Crotch Pride Festival” once a year held in San Francisco, as well as various legal protections. Only by having constant attention focused on this burning issue, can our society hope to advance.

You are so stuck in the 90’s. You talk as if homosexuality has any connection with gender. There are 16 genders. Sexual choice is a whole other issue and major. Soon Federal positions will open up for all those Feminist Gender Study Majors. And perhaps the Mother Lode: affirmative action for each of those 16 genders.

JHK:
” The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, not long ago, were citizens of a greater Russia, to discourage neo-Nazi activity in their back-yard, and most of all to try to stabilize a region that has little history and experience with independence.”

So true, and, in actuality, the election of slightly less corrupt officials was about to commence (Yanukovych’s lack of smarts and scruples was well-known and about to get him “unelected” in the upcoming May elections, and he knew it.)
From Forbes:

“Ukraine’s new 450-seat parliament approved the appointment of the former Central Banker Yatsenyuk on Thursday by a vote of 371 to 1. Oddly enough, earlier this month, the pro-Western Yats trailed behind popular opposition leaders such as former heavyweight boxer Viltali Klitschko and the leader of the nationalist, Svoboda Party, Oleh Tyahnybok. But Yats had friends in high places and while he does not have strong support of the electorate, and would HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING AN ELECTION, he is pro-IMF austerity and apparently the bulk of parliament is as well.”

OHO! “Installed”, eh?

JHK continues:
“They also have to contend with the bankruptcy of Ukraine, which may be the principal cause of its current crack-up. Ukraine is deep in hock to Russia, but also to a network of Western banks, and it remains to be seen whether the failure of these linked obligations will lead to contagion throughout the global financial system. It only takes one additional falling snowflake to push a snow-field into criticality.”

Others heartily agree after having looked into the household finances–

Pepe Escobar:
“So who pays the bills?
The new prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is – what else – a “technocratic reformer”, code for Western puppet. [3] Ukraine is a (torn) basket case. The currency has fallen 20% since the start of 2014. Millions of unemployed Europeans know the European Union does not have the dough to bail out the country (perhaps Ukrainians could ask former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for some tips).

In Pipelineistan terms, Ukraine is an appendix to Russia; it’s Russian gas that transits through Ukraine to European markets. And Ukrainian industry depends on the Russian market.

Let’s take a closer look at the new Aperol Spritz “revolutionary” wallet. Every month, the natural gas import bill from Russia is roughly US$1 billion. In January, the country also had to spend $1.1 billion in debt repayment. Foreign currency reserves plunged to $17.8 billion from $20.4 billion. Ukraine has a minimum debt repayment of no less than $17 billion in 2014. They even had to cancel a $2 billion eurobond issue late last week.

Frankly, Russian President Vladimir Putin – aka Vlad the Hammer – must be grinning like the Cheshire cat. He could simply erase the significant 33% discount on natural gas imports he gave Kiev late last year. Rumor after rumor already state – ominously – that the Aperol Spritz revolutionaries won’t have the cash to pay pensions and public servants’ salaries. In June comes a monster payment to a bunch of creditors ($1 billion in debt will mature). Afterwards, it’s bleaker than north Siberia in winter.

The US offer of $1 billion is risible. And all this after the “”F**k the EU” “strategy” of Victoria Nuland torpedoed an Ukrainian transitional government – by the way, negotiated by the EU – which might have kept the Russians on board, money-wise.

Without Russia, Ukraine will totally depend on the West to pay all its bills, not to mention avoid being bankrupt. That amounts to a whopping $30 billion until the end of 2014. Unlike Egypt, they cannot dial the House of Saud’s number and ask for some juicy petrodollars. That $15 billion loan from Russia promised recently could come in handy – but Moscow must get something in return.”
************************************************

It’s looking rather “costly”, isn’t it?
There appears to be a complete lack of due diligence in the intelligence analysis department before this “operation” was set in motion, and an virulent case of the disease of Hubris. Hail Nuland, the clueless/unwitting/surprise Cassandra! Nemesis awaits; could this be one regime-change too far? Let’s just hope it doesn’t ignite WW3, whether covert or a world-burner.

A slightly rational person could see that a solution is easily to hand. Economic considerations take precedence and Ukranians go to the polls and elect a Russian-leaning president (whose level of corruption is almost “tolerable”), the nation is re-united under the rubric of better-lifestyles-is-a’comin’ (as has really happened lately in the devil’s handmaiden state of Russia), the State Dept.-NSA-CIA-IMF-World Bank consortium cuts its’ loses and scampers/slinks away under cover of night and calls it a wash.

………….How likely is that when provocateurs have been installed and paid for (all the world ’round) who do the bidding of those whose main goal is to destabilize, undermine, divide, conquer and control any and everything, thus funneling tribute wealth from the periphery to the “deserving” center? Perhaps we’re going to find out what’s valuable and what’s not in the very hardest of ways.

So it’s Only about economics? Your Marxist roots are showing. A lot of people over there care about other things – little things like having their own nation. When will you people learn? It could be today: see my post below.

“We’re constructing an edifice of surveillance and social control that would make the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels turn green in his grave with envy while we squander our dwindling political capital on stupid gender confusion battles.”

And I arrive to comment shortly before the happy talk parade takes over the blog.

“America can’t even manage its own affairs. We ignore our own gathering energy crisis, telling ourselves the fairy tale that shale oil will allow us to keep driving to WalMart forever. “

There must be something not wired right in the heads of our leaders. John Kerry is not the only blue blood haircut in search of our brain. The myopia of assuming Russia would sit back passively while we interfear with the political machine of their neighbour is shared by both the old and new money blue bloods of the American aristocracy. It is not without precedent. Russia demanded the right to control Poland’s future after World War Two and when their reasonable demands were ignored it set off the cold war.

Reasonable demands because to us these countries are only colored scraps of map but to Russia these countries are border states the same as Mexico and Canada are to the us. That they be concerned about what happens there is quite reasonable.

But expecting phones to ring off the hook with angry US citizens objecting to our elected officials and pissed off crowds gathering in Farragut Square is every bit as deluded. Wishful thinking. The cancer of thinking that skimming off the top is the normal way to live is too widespread. The idea of being one’s brothers keeper is no more remembered than The Charge of the Light Brigade. Greed is the only part of American economics that ever trickled down.

I have been wondering if Putin was caught so unaware as it seems. Being a fan of conspiracy, I have little trouble believing that a Rothschild is behind every curtain or maybe an ugly Rockefeller stepchild, and of course even Russia has a Central Bank, poor bastards. I imagine with the Russians going through their roaring 20’s, it is very easy for a Central Bank to credibly threaten ruin when a country doesn’t toe the line, even Russia. Anyway, I think Syria is at least in part the goal here, and those pesky Russians evidently interfered with last year’s Israeli-American offensive against Syria, so trouble in the Crimea should slow them down a bit for the next Syrian offensive.

A consensus builds in the alt-media including JHK, David Stockman, and Paul Craig Roberts. PCR observes that a ground-force confrontation in the Crimea is not feasible, and as a result if the fools in charge continue down this path the only viable military option is nuclear. I’m not sure NATO agrees, but maybe we’ll get lucky again and the worst case will be an insolvent G8-1 take their toys, leave the sandbox, and petulantly shout only they get to invade Mali, Libya, Iraq, and etc.

One senses the petrodollar in its final days, thrashing about at anything, soon to reach its historical terminus while fiddling with its cravat as if to say “I don’t get no respect!” There’s an image for you: The Nimitz-Class USS Rodney Dangerfield.

Putin bears a striking resemblance to another shoot-from -the-hip leader. Cut to photo of Vlad bare chested on horse along side photo of a sweaty chain saw wielding George W “down on the ranch”. They’re more Captain Kirk than Jean Luc Picard if anyone recalls those days. But it seems any superpower worth it’s salt is not going to stand by with hands in pockets while it’s neighbor melts down. I don’t think Putin has any delusions of grandeur the US seems to have the corner on that market

Pulled a stomach muscle on Kerry as a “haircut in search of a brain.” Right down to the affected accent, he’s an oversized Jim Henson puppet.

On the subject of Muppets, what fairy tale do you suppose Janet Yellen is going to pull out of her sliver helmet this spring when the weather warms up and the economy hasn’t returned to a perky ninety-eight-point-six degrees?

well, entire countries, entire continents, are banking on these technological advances in alternative energy, and devoting massive scientific resources and some of the best minds to solving the energy crisis – with demonstrably successful results, in many instances (many of which have been cited here).

but if you say they’re wrong, ok we’ll just listen to you from now on.

we salute you as we soar high, high above you into a present and future filled with abundance and cornucopia.

The sooner Obama stops posturing, the sooner Kerry gets his ass back to Washington and stays there or finds something else to occupy his mouth, the sooner this whole fucking mess blows over. Nothing to be done by Americans or anyone else that will help one iota. Best advice for the aforementioned: STFU.

Or maybe there’s a sex scandal brewing that could re-focus everybody’s attention. You think there aren’t a line up of dolls waiting to throw themselves at the Pres? You think he isn’t tempted by all that world-class trim? Maybe it’s just me but if I were him, given all the pressures of the job, I’d be making a pig of myself. So maybe some utterly disreputable tabloid can pop out some juicy babe-alicious stories. True or not it’ll be good for a laugh. And besides, by all appearances, BHO has been too virtuous by half.

In any case, it’s not like the Ukrainians didn’t have elections. They did. They had elections, they elected thieves. The brick-fest in Kiev may have been one foreseeable outcome. But what could the US do about the Ukrainian failure to police Ukraininans? They’re grown ups, they screwed it all up, they get to fix it. Or not.

Russia re-takes the Crimean Peninsula? So what, it’s full of Russians and it was Russian before Nikita Khrushchev (a Ukrainian if memory serves) handed it to the Ukraine. Seriously, who gives a damn? A minding of ones own national business would be highly salutary.

How dare the EU have any say in this matter. Fuck them as Vickie Nuland says. There just the ones who will freeze when Vlad turns off the gas. Nuland is a classic Jewish Neo-Con who married into the Kagan family – who are part of the permanent regime which is above the dog and pony show of electoral politics.

Yes, the Neo-Con Jews helped the Nazi putsch. But the Russian invasion is also called an anschluss. Will the real Nazis please stand up? The explanation is easy: any Whites who want their own Nation are Nazis to these people. They obviously want a Ukraine open to the West and to push aside the quasi-Germans once the real government forms. That would probably mean civil war as these people are serious. Mr MacDonald and perhaps even Mr Putin are far more sensible in their solutions.

it is not even the MIC, it is the people behind them, and maybe even behind them, there are people in place that want to see things move in a way as to insure the Money and Power stay in their hands, currently the world Reserve currency is the US dollar, though not for long, as Russia and other nations are moving away from it, Gold is the new talker( as if it ever wasn’t), but Oil is shrinking, the Dollar is held up by to much printing, and the money hungry people behind the Bank store front of the Federal Reserve and the MIC’s companies, want to keep control of it a while longer. Go hunt up some information on the Council of Foreign Relations for a few mins, even they have puppet strings on their shoulders. No I don’t think it is even the people that others think it is, it’d be too conveinent to have them known in the public eye as they have been.. then again Snowden brought things to light that others out here have told the rest of the nation, about for a while now.

But anyone that has been in the military or government work, knew these things were going on, but maybe only told their friends, who thought it was just a phase they were going through and all, no one seriously thinks the government is being controled by a shadow group of people, I meant honestly, there aren’t wizards in the king’s court anymore are there???

JHK,” The Russians, on the other hand, have every right to protect their interests along their own border, to protect the persons and property of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, not long ago, were citizens of a greater Russia, to discourage neo-Nazi activity in their back-yard, and most of all to try to stabilize a region that has little history and experience with independence.”

You think Putin gives a rouble for the lives of a million Russians? This is purely about military power as was Syria.
Russia has naval facilities in both countries which give it access to the Med and thus additional winter access to the Atlantic. Have a look at the dispersal of the Russian fleet. Without these ports they are in big trouble. Why do you think Ukraine got a discount on its gas?
It would benefit the US no end to have the Russian navy and therefore much of its army hamstrung in such away.
Putin serves Putin and no one else. History will see him as ruthless as Stalin yet with a greed for personal wealth that would shame Goering.
The middle east and north Africa is awash with new Russian made small arms, they aren’t turning up through official government contracts though.

Those small arms are turning up in large numbers in Central and Southern Africa too, WW.They are being used by poachers to slaughter the remaining wildlife; also by different tribes to slaughter each other.

Thanks for the Monday morning jolt of reality. Though at times I get to you in a week or a few days or in the afternoon after my jolt of reality stepping outside my own house.

The USA is getting to be a place I did not grow up in, though I did not do a lot of my growing up in the mainland of the USA I was off on foreign soils a lot being a child of a member of the US Air Force. So I was totally shocked the first time I stepped foot in a Public school in the spring of 1977 in the state of Arkansas. It was dark deary and the teachers didn’t smile much. Though as I remember back I had been in Public schools state-side several times in the past, in the last of first or second grade, and in the last of 6th grade, the other bits of those years had been on Military bases, both overseas and state side.

The whole point is the nation is not what it seems to be. On one hand it is great and glorious, or you are told it is. On the other hand it is silly, dark, and deary, and people don’t like you much. We have lied to ourselves a lot, We have been told we are a great nation and we are speical in all the world. Well so have other nations told their own citizens that same thing. They all can’t be true, can they?

The power money makers, the City-State_Multinational-Corporations are controling the officers of our national governments, some of our state governments too, but they are running the show from behind the curtain, they don’t want Russia to have the power to say no to the Petro-Dollar( the current medium of exchange, that could change soon, but something more has to happen still yet, they still want to control the currency used whatever it is.). And Russia has already said no to it, this is a form of punishment to them for their actions in the past. Look little russian people, we are in control and you can’t say anything about, our puppet in the USA is going to shake his fists at you and you are going to shake in your boots.

All the while every market in the world that these CSMC’s can control they have rigged, they have moved thier funds away from taxation by any other nation, and have said they want to own humans again (slaves are cool again, no matter their skin color).

Once long ago if you gathered up the Royal Kings and Queens and had their wealth weighted against the other 85% of the world, they’d be as rich as the 85 people that are as rich as 3.5 billion people today. We just have different words to call them, they aren’t kings and queens today, but they sure do act like them.

Anyway enough of my blather, off to see if the ice-melt has done it’s job and made my front walk a bit less slippery.

“OMG, SRSLY – you *OUSTED* my apology last week?!? How many aliases are U up to this week, *SOKER*?!? 9?!? No sympathy here, my man…” -ZrCripTroll

I have no idea what you’re rambling about ZrCrip. I posted a Jim Rickards vid this morning in the post you commented to. JHK wrote to me and mentioned he put out the word they they are no longer allowed. Not sure what apology your talkin’ about, either.

Oh, you still think I’d go to the trouble of using aliases on this site, when JHK could easily catch me and ban me, as he knows my name, where I go to school, and phone number.

Brilliant detective work there, ZipperDik *OUCH*. Even if I were Asoka, and you simply can’t resist responding pejoratively to a post which contains no provocation to you whatsoever, well then, that makes you the Troll, doesn’t it.

Eric Berne believed most people with a loser’s script can change them into a winner’s script via therapy. As a nation, society and civilization we are living a loser’s script but where do those in charge with guns and money find a therapist.

I make a useless observation in saying that of them all Putin most resembles one.

World War Three? Why not we have had One and Two and repetition compulsion could make for Three. The fates have us on a hook and free will in and age of surveillance and social control is gone. We can’t even keep it as an illusion. With our loser’s script we can’t manage our own affairs. It won’t be a simple game of lets you and me fight because in our game there will be no winners. In Eric’s game there was a looser and a winner but in ours there is no winner. We are locked in a death dance.

No, still looking. It is a jungle out there and all there are are scraps and bleached white bones. What few jobs there are ask for supermen who don’t exist. An average dog has no chance. I can’t settle for average and I’m trying hard. Less active here and concentrating more in making my own situation work out.

Besides, I can’t be chasing every stick a troll throws over my head and the happy parade crowd is determined to keep their pep rally going no matter what theGuardian publishes and they have resources. Lots of resources. Resources an average reader knows nothing about. Keeping them in line is a full time job and I need one that pays.

Hey, are you still connected to a college…a career services department? Hell, seems the only way to get a foot in the door these days. It worked for me. Good luck man; it can’t be a good feelin’ goin’ so long without a sense of being able to earn a living. Makes lookin’ in to all these issues a lot heavier on the psyche, bro. Stay hardy, dawg.

As if our very short memory causing a hypocritical condemnation of Russian imperialism wasn’t enough – FoxNews coorespondent Kathleen McFarland has written that we should (I’m summarizing), aggressively expand our fracking and other advanced oil recovery techniques to drive the cost of oil below $80. At that point, Russia “can’t meet payroll” and it’s game over for USSR redux. I wonder if she knows the cost of producing oil by fracking or other advanced recovery methods? While I am not in the oil business, my reading leads me to believe it is somewhat north of $80/bbl. Am I mistaken? I also assume that at $80/bbl, several conventional fields may be at or below production costs (Canteral, Gawhar?). Thus, there are no bullets in Ms McFarland’s gun.

The Eric Berne game Kathleen McFarland wants to play is Let’s Pull a Fast One on Joey. But the ‘mark’ is not Russia but is us because America does not benefit in the game. The players who benefit are a suit wearing minority. Sadly, in the game being played everyone ultimately gets taken for a ride. Even the suits for their benefit is short term.

“Welcome to the era of failed states. We’ve already seen plenty of action around the world and we’re going to see more as resource and capital scarcities drive down standards of living and lower the trust horizon. The world is not going in the direction that Tom Friedman and the globalists thought. Anything organized at the giant scale is now in trouble, nation-states in particular. The USA is not immune to this trend, whatever we imagine about ourselves for now.” – jhk –

Very well said, JHK.

I hate to admit that I’m getting almost all of my news from alternative sources these days. This blog and this accompanying discussion thread posts some amazing insights – as long as one keeps the antennae of his bullshit detector fully erect.

With that said – the flailings of Pres. Obama and the State Department seem to be almost PURELY for internal United States’ consumption. And the all-knowing pontificating from the Republican side just looks silly.

Will the Europeans buy any of it? Who knows. But it’s a cinch that the Russians don’t have much reason to worry – not in the near term, especially.

What’s going on in Ukraine and Russia’s reaction seems analogous to what might happen if a pro-US movement started in Cuba, the US threw its support behind it, and Russia threatened the US to back off. Imagine the depth of the US’s outraged indignation if we sent warships to Guantanamo to support a pro-US movement, and the Russian’s threatened to intervene.

Democracy is preferred. It is exceptional. Wilson made his empire’s goal to make the world safe for democracy. All Putin has to do is be more democratic; everyone believes him to be in the closet about his sympathies toward western ideology. Let Russia lease the island from the Ukraine.

In Spain, power generation from wind farms and hydroelectric plants has spiraled upwards, escalating in the last year. This renewable power sector is a leading cause of Spain’s recent 23.1% drop in greenhouse gas emissions. Wind farms moved for the first time front and center in Spain’s energy mix by furnishing the greatest amount of the Spain’s annual electricity supply in 2013.
Red Eléctrica de España (REE) released a preliminary report on the country’s power system late last month, revealing that for “the first time ever, [wind power] contributed most to the annual electricity demand coverage”. According to the figures, wind turbines met 21.1 per cent of electricity demand on the Spanish peninsular, narrowly beating the region’s fleet of nuclear reactors, which provided 21 per cent of power.
In total, wind farms are estimated to have generated 53,926GWh of electricity, up 12 per cent on 2012, while high levels of rainfall meant hydroelectric power output was 16 per cent higher than the historical average, climbing to 32,205GWh.

data for 2013. so spain and germany, powering themselves with wind and solar. throw in holland and denmark too. and brazil, with renewable ethanol and 84% renewable clean hydro.

go ahead, argue with success.

we salute you as we soar high, high above you into a clean future of superabundance and cornucopia.

“The phones at the White House and the Congressional offices ought to be ringing off the hook…”

I don’t know, but I don’t think we’re that kind of people anymore. I know I’m not. Last Sunday as I listened to the sententious blather pouring forth from our Secretary of State, I cringed to think that I once voted for this hapless fellow to be President of the United States. God strike me dead if I ever again vote in a national election!

National policy screw-ups abound in virtually every department. It’s as if our citizenry is being psychologically prepared for state failure, whether such failure occur rapidly or by death-from-a-thousand-cuts.

Perhaps Americans – especially the young – view national problems as remote and beyond solution. What we sixties generation people judge as apathy may simply be an acceptance of reality.

I can’t say that I agree with your solution, Greg. Why not try voting for a third party?

I recall, way back in 2012, that some were discussing a third party vote because Obama was certain to win. So, at the first opportunity, Obama seemed to stumble badly in the first debate. Then it became a bit of a race, followed by a complete absence of the 2003-2008 Obama, and a narrow victory.

Convenient for the two-party system, no? In hindsight, a bit too convenient?

Apathy is a treatment, not a diagnosis. Greg was revealing a strategy for living with a corrupt polity, which strategy may or may not have been apathetic. I was proposing an alternative, which I consider more constructive.

I think that voting is one of the few constructive things which we can do, like serving on a jury, and that we should do them, rather than wait for bad events with worse to come.

(1) Apathy and acceptance may manifest similar outward appearances, but they usually result from different internal processes. Apathy is passive and indifferent, whereas acceptance is active – often the result of considerable analysis and reflection on a given circumstance or set of circumstances.

(2) I will most certainly continue to vote in local elections, but I refuse to lend legitimacy to the National Charade by voting for presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

“Lets you and him fight” If we had all the facts, and agreed on the facts, there wouldn’t be much use for a blog.
Isn’t it much easier to make up a bunch of “stuff” and see if it has enough yeast (gas production) to “get a rise”? The “secret” is in the “dough”.

You have put your finger on the problem, budizwiser. We don’t know, and we can’t know. But we can infer.

If someone knows the facts, but peddles a story that wouldn’t fool a child, then you know that they are covering something up. Your only option in this case is to assume that everything they told you may be false. For example, if the MSM talks about Putin, look for independent verification that there even is such a person.

This strategy is just elementary spy-craft, feeding misinformation to the enemy through trusted agents. But, of course, in the eyes of some, any US citizen who votes is the enemy.

Real motivation of the support of US intelligence and State Department of the neo-Nazi coup in Kiev was to create failed state on the Russian border and channel all resulting unrest inside the Russian borders to destabilize Russian political situation.
Russia is a real geopolitical enemy for hundreds of years of British establishment (now merged with American East Coast establishment). It is all about old rivalry of maritime power vs continental power, maritime empire vs continental empire. Nothing changed. “When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished” – Rudyard Kipling.
The clear and present danger to the New Anglo American empire is the threat to the King Dollar coming from Eastern powers of China and Russia who are tired of paying the military reparations to Western countries through thinly obscured Federal Reserve mechanisms of Currency Boards, banking and trade reserves that are tying up savings of entire Nations in worthless evergreen paper instead of national productive projects.
Everything has changed on March 1, 2014. We are living in a new era now.

Just watched Putin’s press conference…. calm, cool, very direct without thumping his chest or invoking US style jingoism and the usual horseshit note of humanitarianism. He says the American government conducts experiments on other countries (hell, its own citizens, too) as if they were lab rats, without any regard for consequences… blowback. Putin didn’t even stand up for the interview. Impressive.

Meanwhile, Franken Berry Kerry and stiff upper lip Origami Tiger Obama float and sputter, as if they still oversee a nation of exceptionals… more like expendables. Ah, and Kerry arrives in UKraine with a billion in bribes, and guess what, nobody expected anything different. Unchanged. So when is Chris Hedges gonna finally light himself on fire and set the revolution off? Maybe he’ll just have another baby instead.

But, as you suggest, “facts” are in extremely short supply, falsified and massaged and culled by spin doctors for various interests. And laundered and shrunken through media organizations who tailor their presentations for the miniscule modern attention span.

But, having said that, here’s a few at least as I see them.

The Ukraine is geographically divided among Russians and Ukrainians.

The Ukraine is bankrupt. No way in hell they’ll make good on their debts. Yanukovich took the best deal on offer ie from Putin.

Does anyone know the particulars of the deal? Nobody not in on the telephone conversation between Putin and Yanukovich will ever know.

Some in the Ukraine thought it was a good deal, at least as they understood it. Others didn’t.

Yanukovich got the heave-ho.

The Russian army is camping out in the Crimea.

Obama and Kerry cannot seem to keep their traps shut. Neither can a lot of other “outraged” western leaders all of whom welcome this distraction from their own fuck ups.

“There is also another phenomenon taking place. Unlike the the USA or Europe, Russians have a much longer attention span. While in the West nobody cares to ever remember that, Russians do remember the promise made to Gorbachev not to move NATO to the East, they remember the US bombing and invasion of Bosnia and Kosovo, they remember the West’s support for Chechen Wahabis and Jewish oligarchs like Berezovsky, they remember the West’s full support for Saakashvili’s attack on Russian peacekeepers and the people of South Ossetia, they remember the deployment of missiles all around Russia and they remember the war on Libya, and the US and EU sponsored butchery of Syria. And as one commentator put it yesterday, “this time it is not about Syrians or Ukrainians, it’s about us, we are next in line””

What is the difference between aid package offered by Russia and the West?

It cannot be expressed in the meaningless billions of dollars that would be immediately stolen by kleptocratic Ukrainian oligarchy; it is much more than that.

Russia offers deep discounts on natural gas so Ukraine could keep its heating subsidies, West demands that Ukraine abandons them
Russia offers to restore mutual projects in military, space, air and nuclear industries so hundreds of thousands of hi-tech Ukrainian workers could keep their jobs (Russia and Ukraine have traditional mutual links since the Soviet era)
West demands Ukraine to conform IMMEDIATELY to EU technological standards which would require investment of at least $160 billion dollars to overhaul the production facilities (which Ukraine needless to say does not have and nobody offered to them) or halt all production and lay off the workers.
Russia would gladly buy Ukrainian agricultural produce, EU demands that ALL agricultural produce to conform to EU standards or it will be prohibited for sale even on Ukrainian farmers markets.

In short, West want to see older Ukrainians die off as soon as they can obliged, younger and prettier Ukrainian women in Euro and US bordellos, and stronger and healthier Ukrainian men as serfs in Poland and Germany.

White Christian family who sought asylum is to be deported. The Obama regime concludes that home schooling isn’t a right and the German Government isn’t persecuting them. So much for any concern about German totalitarianism now that the shoe is on the other foot.

I like the shorter name–“Want Out.” The interesting thing about that is that the parent and adult both actually want out, while the child does not and sabotages the effort to get out early. So, K-Dog, are you saying that your adult and parent want you to stop feeding our resident vampire, but the child thinks it’s too much fun? In that case, I’ll help you by changing the subject to a different kind of undead–zombies.

Earlier, I’ve linked to an exploration of what The Archdruid and his readers had to say about zombies in pop culture. That was just the most recent conversation they had on the topic. The very first was in 2007, when Greer made fun of the survivalist fantasy about mindless hordes escaping the cities to ravage the countryside during a collapse. In the first comment, a reader linked that image to the zombie apocalypse. It was off to the races from there.

“Are you saying that your adult and parent want you to stop feeding our resident vampire, but the child thinks it’s too much fun?”

Guilty as charged! I need to beat that little pup down.

Concerning vampires a walking dead scenario is what I see as a possibility if Safeway trucks ever stop delivery. Reality may not match the vision but imagine a mindless horde just short of death wandering around looking for anything to eat. Tree bark will no longer do and anybody not of the wandering tribe will be quickly digested without the aid of salt, pepper or any special sauce. Perhaps vampires are an unconscious subliminal projection of the wurst case scenario.

Hey Pucker, I’m that crazy annoying guy in the backrow, shouting out all kinds of crazy sh-t, heckling the speaker at the podium, until the guards have to drag me out and toss me on the street …

Actually I learned about amnesty for gay immigrants on NPR. The segment was about different means people who enter here illegally try to gain legal status. claiming political persecution in their home countries for homosexuality is one of the strategies.

I’m not surprised those German homeschoolers were kicked out. A coworker tried to get his cousin from SAfrica into the country, He was a trained civil engineer. It was no go.

“I haven’t found much English-language commentary that’s all that useful. Best by far is James Howard Kunstler’s piece from this morning.”

Jim distilled it down to a bite sized chunk of human nature. Dmitry gives more details.

I found this notable:

“Once upon a time I had an excellent history teacher, who has made a lasting impact on how I view the world. “It’s about the dates,” he taught us; “Be sure to remember the dates, and you’ll have the key to history.” You see, dates are important because most of the important historical events are, in fact, anniversaries.”

I take a scientific view of life and historical dates are man-made and so can’t correlate with history except when theatre is involved as in the Reichstag Fire false flag. Or the Boston Marathon F…. …. .

Late to this party, but WTF does our government not remember about Russia and its sphere of influence? I don’t like Putin one bit, but consider an analogy.

Had Mexico’s government fallen to pro-Russian demonstrators and their president run across the border to us, any US President of the past century would have been rolling the tanks by now. Putin only–so far–has secured Russia’s big naval base on the Black Sea.

I had the same thought. I think Jim was spot-on too. It’s another opportunity for the President to reveal how utterly incapable we are of projecting power around the globe, even though that’s the myth. That we can control events anywhere and at the same time.

Vlad/Janos –
According to this link, the German home-schooling family was granted “indefinite deferred status,” just today:

“A post on the HSLDA’s Facebook wall signed by the organization’s chairman, Michael Farris, explains the change:

Today, a Supervisor with the Department of Homeland Security called a member of our legal team to inform us that the Romeike family has been granted “indefinite deferred status”. This means that the Romeikes can stay in the United States permanently (unless they are convicted of a crime, etc.)” – link –

While I’ve got the channel open – what’s with calling vlad/janos a troll*, k-dog and neon??

This is a peak everything website, right? There will be a component of racial divisiveness as society turns the corner into “a world made by hand,” right? Therefore, questions of race have a place here at CFN, whether we like them (and those who raise them) or not.

And, apparently, the Ukrainian situation has a racial component. Most human situations do.

“Since 2003, the number of precedential LGBT asylum cases has more than tripled. Not surprisingly, the Ninth Circuit has continued to expand asylum, withholding and CAT protections for LGBT individuals,…”

The benefits to CAT are limited. An individual who is successful under a CAT claim cannot be removed from the United States to the country from which she fled persecution, but can be removed to a third country if one is available. An individual granted CAT cannot adjust her status to legal permanent resident, but can obtain work authorization.

For you Gold Bugs (a phrase first coined by Edgar Allen Poe in an excellent short story by that name. Takes place in Georgia P2C) there’s a new book out … ‘Gold, The Race For the World’s Most Seductive Metal’, by Matthew Hart.

The subject of gold comes up here every once in awhile. This book tells you the history of it, how much there is, how its valued, where its mined etc. Also he goes into pretty good detail why a return to the gold standard is not a good idea, and would in fact be a disaster

I met a retired prizefighter in Rochester, New York, where I went to college and spent a couple summers pumping gas and working part-time in a local amusement park. The fighter was a friend of the park owner who had found him a pseudo-job organizing game tickets and prizes in a little shack on the edge of the fairgrounds.

This guy was delusional, particularly about his physiology, or what was left of it. He suffered dementia pugilistica, which caused him to lose his train of thought and his eyes to roll in search of orientation. He was fat and pasty, with several chins obscured by ratty whiskers. He lolled about in a decrepit office chair, sorting trinkets and counting tickets, all the while declaring how fit he was.

He would rattle off his opponents’ names and fight records, and declare himself ready for a rematch. It was as though, at some point, a hard punch had hit his pause button and he had been stuck there since, unaware of his decrepit state.

I second that on the analogy! And ‘Requiem’ illustrates James’ point nicely. I don’t think the female lead was Eva Marie Saint but it was an actress of her type…I’ll look it up at some point.

In any event, when I think of the U.S. response to the situation in Ukraine, the phenomenon of ‘cultural lag’ or ‘motif’ comes to mind.There is a repetition of a familiar set of behaviors – an ingrained reaction that reminds us of who we think we are as a people. Motifs are comfortable cultural touchstones that can continue long after their utility has been exhausted – like wood-grained prints applied to plastic TV cabinets that recall cabinets of real wood, or the designation of drab single-story suburban houses as ‘ranchers’ even though no cattle or horses are involved. (There are some painful childhood memories involved here but I’ll spare you the details.)

I guess the word most people use for ‘cultural lag’ would be ‘tradition’. Sometimes good – sometimes not.

Those are some excellent and funny observations Gregg Knepp. In our current state, “reality” has been folded over so many times that even the simulacrum is nothing but a distant echo. And that wouldn’t be so bad, if the echo of the simulacrum were allowed to fade away into oblivion where it belongs unheard. But no, the hyenas step forward yet again to regurgitate those lame old platitudes of propaganda in the form of the first person cackling.

I’m that insane annoying guy up in the backrow cheapseats, shouting out all kinds of crazy sh-t, heckling the speaker at the podium, creating a diversion so my partner can circulate throughout the crowd picking pockets, until security tosses me out into the street.

Bud, speaking of ‘gas money’, I notice diesel fuel is up over $4.50 per gallon round these parts. A little steep, no? but it seems to be a non issue; I don’t hear any complaints, not even from that trucker network radio station out of Cincinnati at nite. Maybe everybody got used to the high prices, written off as just the cost of doing business.

The post count is severely down; nobody with a functional brain would want to deal with the inbred bullshit promulgated by the JHK sycophants.
Yes, I come to observe, because this could be so much more.

But it’s a wasteland of recycled rhetoric about nothing. Racist shit from fascists and supported by the populous of this blog.
I wonder why JHK puts up with it?
Surely he doesn’t support this crap! Yet his blog is home to such and it leaves one wondering…

The post count is severely down; nobody with a functional brain would want to deal with the inbred bullshit promulgated by the JHK sycophants.Yes, I come to observe, because this could be so much more. But it’s a wasteland of recycled rhetoric about nothing.

check out the response to my post about spain getting most of its electricity from wind power, you’ll see the level of these nincompoops.

JHK, why do you even suffer them?

oh well, i’ll keep overachieving financially, travelling the world, learning languages, getting to know cultures, study scientific advances, play Bach on my harpsichord, and soar high above most of you into a future replete with abundance and cornucopia.

“Travelling the world, learning languages, getting to know cultures, study scientific advances, play Bach on my harpsichord, and soar high above most of you into a future replete with abundance and cornucopia.”

That your aristocratic sociopathic ass has no time for charity work or the feeding stray dogs or poor less fortunate souls than yourself is noted.

I’m willing to bet that he’s actually a morbidly obese diabetic sitting unbathed and half-dressed at his filthy computer desk surrounded by empty beer cans and pizza boxes permanently attached to a dialysis machine… Depends on his monthly disability check to pay the rent on his 600 sq.ft. basement apartment… Has barely mastered the English language alone, couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if his life depended on it and simply can’t let go of the fantasy of an extravagant life with a cornucopian future because that would require the brutal honesty of facing up to what industrial modernity — and his lifetime of bad decisions — has done to him. To us.

If he did come to terms with this, it would be more than he could bare so he’d have to off himself. But he lacks the balls. So sad.

Jim, Remember the Sudetenland? Apparently Vlad the Impaler does, since he’s taken the whole Ukraine operation right out of Hitler’s playbook, including the stuff about protecting the rights of the Russian minority. Ever since WW II people have said “if only we had stopped him there we could have avoided so many deaths and so much destruction.” Well, “then” is “now.” and we haven’t learned a thing.

No serious person expected Russia to give up their warm water port in the Black Sea – which is their gate to the Med. It would be a geo-political disaster for them. Putin is not such a fool. And the Russian Minority wants them to protect them from the Neo Nazis and Nationalists who hate Russia and Russians – so you are really stretching reality out of shape. The Ukraine obviously isn’t a viable country as currently constructed. Neither is the United States.

The New World Order types obviously expected to use the Far Right and then shoulder them aside. The Far Right probably expected to do the same thing to them. So even without Putin’s intervention, it was a very bad situation shaping up.

As a comfortable working 50ish guy attempting to evaluate and grasp reality in order to simplify things; I see this Ukraine issue as an attractive young lady with some debts to some hardcase dudes. In a world where the biggest issues are procurement of resources and maintenance of markets(and boogie-men) I think I’m seeing another tug-of-war where we(the west) would like to see this girl Wall Street-walking. My 401k says you go girl, but my gut says stay home and raise a nice family.

An attractive young lady who’s suitors will have no part of a Menage à Trois. Her hardcase dude suitors fight for exclusive rights to her love just like in the Erick Berne game of Lets You and Him Fight.

I’m finding it hard to find out anything reliable about what the situation is really all about in Ukraine. It appears to me all anyone wants to do is advance their own agenda, truth be dammed.

From a general point of view that wants to take it all in at once it appears to be a situation of those who have not are angry with those who already have and want more.

Is the Ukraine a microcosm of a future planet wide ’emergency’ that goes on and on and never ends? A planet wide Rodney King nightmare where the average dog with a brain is left to ponder “why can’t we all get along”.

Failed state or failed planet? Which is it?

Will the myopia ever end?

I dream of the day when truth is valued as much as gold and kindness becomes the currency of the kingdom. When pursuit of individual self-interest is seen as quaint and erroneous as the 15th century practice of purchasing forgiveness of sin with coin to receive an indulgence.

“…pursuit of individual self-interest is seen as quaint and erroneous…”

Amen to that, bro. But don’t hold your breath. Humanity has proven from long ago that it’s utterly incapable of such, except in extremely limited, short-term circumstances where individuals make the conscious choice to live thusly. Think: monastic communities.

It’s already over with, K-dog… Germany refuses to side with the U.S. on sanctions… The only true condemnation that’s come of this whole ordeal is pure symbolic, nothing but words. Oh, and the American taxpayer just lost another billion to Ukraine puppet bureaucrats.

Putin out classed these other so called world leaders on an international stage once again. The embarrassment they (US ‘diplomats’) all are feeling right now is quite evident from the recent media I’ve viewed. This situation will continue to die down while the rhetoric and PR maneuvering continues persists from both sides of the political aisle and through the East vs West meme. I caught McCain and the rest of the usual punditocracy ceding defeat on the matter last night on Charlie Rose. The weekend media hype was about cementing the propaganda against Russia in the minds of the average media consumer, but the business week required that the crybabies get on with reality. Again, Putin smacked these little fuckers on the ass in his early week press conference and sent them to their rooms without supper. And McCain’s still pissed about getting his ass kicked in ’08, just a giveaway that he feels subconsciously irrelevant in today’s environment. Pathetic.

Of course, none of these “facts” will mean much to the couch commanders who continue to invoke the the most common logical fallacy there is – that past is prologue.

Your gonna see the usual idiots filter this modern political chess match through the scratched and blury WWII lens, but none of their claims will be appropriately parallel and not even barely equivalent. Putin isn’t Hitler, and the heroic America of the 30s and 40s was little more than a propaganda poster then, and just a blockbuster comic book flick today.

“…heroic America of the 30s and 40s was little more than a propaganda poster then…” –UFIA

So true, so true. It’s a romantic image that has been served up to us and bought into big time, especially among the right wing component.

Most of the men who signed up for WW2 were bored little farm boys (like my dad) who found a great “patriotic” excuse to get the hell away from the farm and see the world. Granted, they were a far cry better men that ‘merica produces today — can you imagine fighting that war with today’s crop? — but that’s more about their austere, hard-work upbringing than about any particular heroism…

“Most of the men who signed up for WW2 were bored little farm boys (like my dad) who found a great “patriotic” excuse to get the hell away from the farm and see the world. Granted, they were a far cry better men that ‘merica produces today — can you imagine fighting that war with today’s crop? — but that’s more about their austere, hard-work upbringing than about any particular heroism…” Greg

Dead on insight, Greg.

My Great uncle Connie was an upstate New Yorker, son of German immigrant parents, imbued with a type of indefatigable work ethic I’ve never seen in another man since, certainly no Boomer I’ve observed comes close; admittedly, that nature kind of character is absent in me too, not because I’m lazy or unhardy, but because whatever opportunity existed for men of that character then doesn’t exist in any form or fashion today, not without perpetuating some other hidden travesty at least. Thing is, such travesties are no longer hidden from the limited vantage point of that your fabled farm boys. It’s all out in the open now, thanks to globalism and the DUBYA DUBYA DUBYA. For this we can expressly credit the WWII generation’s craven offspring.

My Uncle was a WWII para trooper, a successful business owner afterward, and if I believed in heroes, he would qualify as one. Anyhow, he was simply a man who liked to make his own way in life, and lived during a time in this country when that was still mostly possible; he didn’t have to answer much to the government. Not so today.

I certainly don’t have an explanation as to why shit is so fucked up now, as if it never wasn’t; my unclear rant likely demonstrates this, but as far as “today’s crop” goes, I won’t defend them against the WWII generation; WWII warriors were fortunate enough to be allowed to drop the first nukes on enemies with impunity, and had the good fortune of hiding behind all the fear and false glory winning a war that way enables; in contrast, my generation doesn’t get the same conscience-free shot at risking nuclear annihilation and the end of the species in another go ’round of atomic dispute; we know what the atom is now, different to ‘dem farm boys. So fighting a third world war to protect and preserve all the bullshit platitudes of the past and the shameful deceit and continual rot which followed it is an absolute disgrace. Boomer politicians and Millennial soldiers won’t get to drop nukes unanswered this time, so let’s stop pullin’ dick about it. I surely won’t fight for the same lies men of the past stood for.

Here’s a good piece on the situation from the Nationalist pov. Needless to say, the Americans raving the most about Ukrainian Sovereignty are the Globalists like Kerry and Brezinsky who don’t believe in Nations at all. They just want to get access to the Ukraine’s resources – and chip away at the Russian Federation. Putin is absolutely justified in holding the Crimea and at least part of Eastern Ukraine since they are Russian areas.

We have already entered the era of abundance and cornucopia in virtually every respect, thanks to the great and noble Western tradition of science and liberty.

The blind see, the lame walk, heart attacks become virtually a relic of the past….oh how you shallowminded naysayers are wrong on all counts!

We soar high, high above you at the speed of light as we rocket into a future of superabundance and cornucopia.

“But one more thing – if anybody’s listening, that is. Nothing scientific. It’s purely personal. But seen from out here everything seems different. Time bends. Space is boundless. It squashes a man’s ego. I feel lonely. That’s about it. Tell me, though. Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor’s children starving?”

I was born about ten thousand years ago
There ain’t nuthin’ in this world that I don’t know
I saw Peter Paul and Moses playin’ ring-around-the-roses
And I’ll whup the guy what says it isn’t so

Well, I’m just a lonesome traveler, a great historical bum
Highly educated through history I have come
I built the Rock of Ages, it was in the year of One
And that’s about the biggest thing that Man has ever done

I saw Adam and Eve driven from the door
I’m the guy that picked the fig leaves that they wore
And from behind the bushes peepin’ saw the apple they was eatin’
And I swear that I’m the one that et the core

Now I built the garden of Eden, it was in the year of Two
Joined the apple-pickers union and I always paid my dues
I’m the man that signed the contract to raise the risin’ sun
And that’s about the biggest thing that Man has ever done

I taught Samson how to use his mighty hand
I showed Columbus to this happy land
And for Pharaoh’s little kiddies I built all the pyramiddies
And to the Sahara carried all the sand

Now I was strawboss on the pyramids and the tower of Babel too
I opened up the ocean, let the mighty children through
I fought a million battles and I never lost a one
And that’s about the biggest thing that Man has ever done

Well, I’m just a lonesome traveler, a great historical bum
Highly educated through history I have come
I built the Rock of Ages, it was in the year oh one
And that’s about the biggest thing that Man has ever done

Mitchell Trio, whew, those were great days for the folkies, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, early Bob Dylan, Barry McGuire … I looked up Mitchell Trio pics, they were rebels alright, but what? no neck tatts, no nose rings, and how come nobody is grabbing their own crotch?

Liberals are too proud and dumb to realize the Birchers were right about almost everything. Time has proven their vision – and invalidated Liberalism. They knew about that America had fallen long before you all did.

Bluegrass is the genuine American Folk Music. “Folk Music” was and is mostly done by people who hate America and Americans.

“Most of the men who signed up for WW2 were bored little farm boys (like my dad) who found a great “patriotic” excuse to get the hell away from the farm and see the world. Granted, they were a far cry better men that ‘merica produces today — can you imagine fighting that war with today’s crop? — but that’s more about their austere, hard-work upbringing than about any particular heroism…” -Greg

Dead on insight, Greg.

My Great uncle Connie was an upstate New Yorker, son of German immigrant parents, imbued with a type of indefatigable work ethic I’ve never seen in another man since, certainly no Boomer I’ve observed comes close; admittedly, that kind of character is absent in me too, not because I’m lazy or unhardy, but because whatever opportunity existed for men of that character then doesn’t exist in any form or fashion today, not without perpetuating some other hidden travesty at least. Thing is, such travesties are no longer hidden from the limited vantage point of your fabled farm boy. It’s all out in the open now, thanks to globalism and the DUBYA DUBYA DUBYA. For this we can expressly credit the WWII generation’s craven offspring.

My Uncle was a WWII paratrooper, a successful business owner afterward, and if I believed in heroes, he would qualify as one. Anyhow, he was simply a man who liked to make his own way in life, and lived during a time in this country when that was still mostly possible; he didn’t have to answer much to the government. Not so today.

I certainly don’t have an explanation as to why shit is so fucked up now, as if it never wasn’t; my unclear rant likely demonstrates this, but as far as “today’s crop” goes, I won’t defend them against the WWII generation; WWII warriors were fortunate enough to be allowed to drop the first nukes on enemies with impunity, and had the good fortune of hiding behind all the fear and false glory winning a war that way enables; in contrast, my generation doesn’t get the same conscience-free shot at risking nuclear annihilation and the end of the species in another go ’round of atomic dispute; we know what the atom is now, different to ‘dem farm boys. So fighting a third world war to protect and preserve all the bullshit platitudes of the past and the shameful deceit and continual rot which followed it is an absolute disgrace. Boomer politicians and Millennial soldiers won’t get to drop nukes unanswered this time, so let’s stop pullin’ dick about it.

‘…a man who liked to make his own way in life, and lived during a time in this country when that was still mostly possible…”

That generation lived through a historically unprecedented period. The opportunity to shape one’s life, make an easy living, own a home… My financial advisor brother-in-law marvels at how many of them failed to amass an easy retirement portfolio during the years of low cost of living coupled with reliable compound interest. He says they are without excuse, and those days are done.

“… fighting a third world war to protect and preserve all the bullshit platitudes of the past and the shameful deceit and continual rot which followed it is an absolute disgrace.”

A big Amen to that. Gee, let’s offer ourselves up on the altar of the almighty transnational corporate slave masters for their exorbitant off-shore tax-free profits. Truly a glorious and honorable way to die.

As to the farm boy work ethic: I’ve been an employer for too many years, and my experience — without exception — is that people raised on farms (especially the diverse family type) have more self discipline, work ethic, and common sense than nearly anyone from the city.

Growing up during the depression made people tough. At seventy years old, my dad could still outwork men half his age.

Good points. We can admire without having to glorify much less sanctify. And as for work, why should slaves work hard? As the workers in the old Communist “Worker Paradises” used to say, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”

Whoo! Ben Bernanke is cashing in, yes, and cashing in BIG!! $250,000 for a speech yesterday, and $400,000 for a speech a few weeks ago. I don’t think he said much. What is there to say, really? Its his presence, that’s what’s important. And the wisdom.

Today I checked out FB and our friend Wage posted something she heard on of all things FOX. Giuliani made the following statement:

“We need to frack more gas to give to Europe so that they will help us attack Russia. And we should have started 6 months ago. …. Because we knew 6 months ago that the government of the Ukraine would be overthrown? “—Wage

I said:
Interesting Info on the planning of this 6 mos and $5 Billion ago. Gulianni is in a unique position to know. He’s been a spokesperson with 9/11 cache. His law firm represents foreign nationals on our Nasco Corridor (Nafta Super Hiway) and has been partners with a Kuwaiti emir in a privatized security force.

He’s part of the Neocon group who may have done this without Obama. They don’t recognise that they lost an election. Obama has kept many of these people on….they are the permanent govt.

Your feeling are hurt. You love Israel and the CIA! You are ridiculous sometimes – like now.

Hitler was all for a strong Britain. America didn’t bother to back them up and allowed the Japanese to sink their fleet. The Banksters had finished with the British Empire and were ready to use America as their vehicle.

You are so wrong about Ukraine. I actually live in the country and have a darn good idea of what’s going on here.

First of all, the Russian language has not been outlawed. Most magazines and newspapers are available in Russian. Most TV programming is in Russian. Be more specific. Ukrainian has been restored as the state language, as it was before 2011. Parliament has been overturning laws passed by the dictatorial government of Yanukovych. The Russian language law was one of those laws.

Second, Ukraine was not a province of Russia. It has a separate religion, language, history and culture. Speaking of outlawing languages, it was illegal to publish anything in Ukrainian in the Russian empire. Combine that with the Holodomor, the genocide of millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s, and, sure, it will seem like Ukraine is just a province of Russia. Kill a people and their language, replace them with Russians, and that is what you get.

How is the new Ukrainian government neo-Nazi? The prime minister is Jewish. The minister of internal affairs is half Russian and half Armenian. The minister of defense is of Roma origin.

Arm yourselves with facts before you make strong statements about another country. It’s offensive to read such nonsense after watching so many people die in Ukraine to make a better country.

Jews and Nazis have worked together before. They did in Germany where both wanted Jews to move to Israel. That being said, there is no love lost. Each probably would have tried to purge the other if possible.

Not all Countries make sense. Ukraine needs to split in two with the larger being pro-Western. That’s justice – not a lot of legalistic nonsense. The Crimea was, is, and will be Russian. They aren’t giving it up. Case closed.

That your aristocratic sociopathic ass has no time for charity work or the feeding stray dogs or poor less fortunate souls than yourself is noted. K-Dog

Now that’s an interesting, if disturbing, assumption.
Since when is traveling and LEARNING an aristocratic activity?
I traveled on a wing and a prayer; and as to learning, it’s there at every corner, experience, encounter, and engagement with a different culture and especially language.
It’s an enriching experience that has nothing to do with position or wealth. Au contraire, the wealthy and privileged rarely trouble themselves with such trifles…

“Lisa,” I suspect you have been sent in from somewhere to counteract “Levko.” And you are obviously unaware that the boss here, JHK, has asked us repeatedly not to post youtubes like that.

I don’t know enough about Ukrainian politics to have an opinion – EXCEPT to say that the US government should not be involved in financing opposition movements. AND that the US govt. should NOT complain about invasions, not after Afghanistan and Iraq.

But, if I am to pick a set of propaganda points that seem more logical, I will have to pick “lisa” over “levko,” for the following reasons.

1. “Levko” says that the “coup?” in Ukraine must be good because it is not “neo-Nazi.” In his words, “How is the new Ukrainian government neo-Nazi? The prime minister is Jewish. The minister of internal affairs is half Russian and half Armenian. The minister of defense is of Roma origin”

2. “Levko” linked to an article from “nybooks” blog. This article also showed up on Demitri Orlov’s blog where he called it pure lies and propaganda – or words to that effect.

3. And from the nybooks article, we find the following sentiment,”Enter a lonely, courageous Ukrainian rebel, a leading investigative journalist. A dark-skinned journalist who gets racially profiled by the regime. And a Muslim. And an Afghan. This is Mustafa Nayem, the man who started the revolution. Using social media, he called students and other young people to rally on the main square of Kiev in support of a European choice for Ukraine. That square is called the Maidan, which by the way is an Arab word.”

Whoever is running the PR/propaganda campaign is targeting it to a specific belief that the American populace will approve any amount of bullsh*t as long as it is appropriately multi-cultural.

I’m sorry, I did not know I was not allowed to post utube the way I did.

I hardly ever read the blogs or participate in the discussions. What is the point? You can not change anybody’s position anyway. It just pains me to watch the lies on TV, and to listen to the lies on radio. The ignorance is just scary. I just wanted answers to a few questions. I gess I’m not getting them

“First of all, the Russian language has not been outlawed. Most magazines and newspapers are available in Russian. Most TV programming is in Russian. Be more specific. Ukrainian has been restored as the state language, as it was before 2011. Parliament has been overturning laws passed by the dictatorial government of Yanukovych. The Russian language law was one of those laws.” -Levko-the-infiltraitor

===================================

Thus we can all be quite specific from the paragraph above that, in point of fact, the Russian language as a national tongue in a state of majority Russian heritage was outlawed thanks to the recent overturning of a prior government’s laws. Now minority Ukrainians get to dictate to the majority on what and how to speak. Sounds like a democratic revolution to me ;>) No extreme nationalistic uprising overtones there, huh?

I expect his kinda mumbo jumbo from Yankos Zucchini, so maybe he’s found a pard-ner?

I have no doubt a seemingly diverse group of puppet bureaucrats were selected and installed as interim leadership for Eukraine, to quickly implement the fiscal austerity measures intended by the West… but there’s also no doubt Nationalist (Nazi-ish) hard-liners recognized an opportunity and came out to heartily greet the new kids, swinging’ the interim govt. placeholder panzies ’round by their neck ties in state offices, influencing a Nazi-esque brand of national reform. Just how far they’ll advance such reforms, merely another attempt at co-opting the various competing agendas simultaneously in play, remains THE open question.

For any interested, recent Charlie Rose interviews offer quite a lot of detail about the events in Ukraine as they continue to unfold, straight from the mouths of apparent power-players, if you can stand the counter-propagandist, “exceptional” tactics. That and a myriad of articles floating about “alternative” media are as close as anyone is going to get to finding “facts” on the situation.

One thing is clear, Putin is not Hitler’s second coming, but Neo-Cons here need him to be. And from what I can tell, the general public buys the line that Putin’s Crimean invasion recalls early Nazi claim staking. That, they think, is the best shot at a salable narrative likely to convince an American populace so brainwashed with WWII and II nostalgia that it’s time for the 3rd and final chapter in the story. After all, people do like to read books of a consistent angle, no? Just gott have another blockbuster sequel, don’t we.

UFIA, the only Pol I’ve heard explicitly comparing Putin and Russia to Hitler and the Nazis is Hillary Clinton, hardly a neo-con.

Another place with no functioning government and sliding into chaos is Libya. Some pretty bad bloodbaths are predicted for Libya in the near future, bloodbaths that are occurring daily in Iraq and Syria..

I know many of you want to just look inward now and turn your back on the world, which above all is what the election of Obama represented. But the way the world is boiling up all around us, at every corner, on every continent, at this juncture in history, it ain’t gonna happen. We might be able to ignore worldwide chaos for a little while longer, focus on things like minimum wage, or gay this and that, or foodstamps, or free cellphones, or the 1%, or 12 years a slave, but sooner or later the malevolence and disorder will seek us out here. We are not immune, which was the whole point of JHKs books and this site to begin with.

Brzezinski has to be pushing 90; I don’t know how much people are still listening to him. Kissinger is still around (out in Kent) and said much the same thing earlier in the week.

Not to worry. The EU issued another stern warning, and Obama announced he will be monitering the situation from his vacation resort in Key Largo. Plus the UN is forming up a committee to look into the whole affair. It should be assembled sometime next year.

“UFIA, the only Pol I’ve heard explicitly comparing Putin and Russia to Hitler and the Nazis is Hillary Clinton, hardly a neo-con.”

I hear ya, BRH…. Clinton and McCain are two prominent voices saying the same things about Putin and Hitler. See McCain’s interview on Rose a few nights ago. Is McCain a Neo-Con or just a war hawk? Makes no difference I suppose; either way, high-level politicians and think-tankers are just front spokespeople for military industrialism and varied multinational conquerors.

And I do understand the confluence of the neoconservative and neoliberal agendas at work in these Geo-political issues. When the neo-libs fuck up and fail to exploit a country fiscally, according to plan, the neocons are sent in to kick some ass. The two work together to bring “law of the land” status to an area they wish to control; one begets the other so to speak. It’s really quite simple from my POV. It’s not even a conspiracy as I see it. Just plain dumbfuckery.
=============

“I know many of you want to just look inward now and turn your back on the world, which above all is what the election of Obama represented.” -BRH

==============

Didn’t quite understand that, boss. Elaborate?

=====================

“We might be able to ignore worldwide chaos for a little while longer, focus on things like minimum wage, or gay this and that, or foodstamps, or free cellphones, or the 1%, or 12 years a slave, but sooner or later the malevolence and disorder will seek us out here. We are not immune, which was the whole point of JHKs books and this site to begin with.”-BRH

=================

100% agreement there, bud. Though, you cite those banner issues as though they are simply illegitimate Liberal hang-ups, not branded slogans packaged intentionally to harness your way of thinking; your own ability to effect a change.

I guess this is why I wondered not long ago why you’re always pointing only to the blatant hypocrisy and fruitiness of common media memes and Liberal elitists, Homo’s, female toiletries in military barracks, etc. Seems you yourself are aware that these are distracting, nonsensical, and intentionally divisive themes but mention them frequently. Seems you’ve turned your back as well and have allowed the bullshit in.

So, what I mean is, what are you trying to say now? We all need to band together for when SHTF soon? Why the sudden change of sentiment? Why, if it’s not worth doing now, banding together against the OBVIOUS corruption from all elements of government, then why would it be any different then?

Personally, I don’t see what’s worth saving… I admit this is entirely cynical.

Reminds me, I heard Chris Hedges and Derrick Jensen in a talk where the two were gently stroking one another to finally set down the noble pen and say it’s time to start fighting the system with any means necessary. They neither of the two are willing to take direct action themselves. they think they’re inspiring guys like me to do it for them… SHEEEEAAAAT.

Hedges was quite reluctant to endorse violence, but I could hear the emerging acquiescence to Jensen’s POV in his voice. Maybe soon enough they’ll cease with the literary romanticism of revolution and actually put some weight behind their eloquence. These Liberal sissies need to drop this intellectual bullshit and pick up some rocks and clubs like real men once and for all….hahaha.

UFIA, this is our home. Its all we’ve got. Most of us will not be emigrating to foreign places. For better or worst, we are Americans. I do think there is a lot here worth saving. I don’t know about you, but the country has been good to me and my family.

Also it seems like it is our destiny to engage the rest of the world.There are many reasons for it. That’s just the way it is. There’s no getting around it. You can pretend it is not so and reduce the Army to 450,000 soldiers, but its just denying reality.

We’re just of different minds about what it means to belong to where we live. Whatever it is we might have been able to come to terms about with regard to preserving American culture is too far gone to be salvaged. For me, it’s either fight for something entirely new, or let it all go where its headed. By default, we’ve each chosen the latter.

“Should the US be financing the opposition movement in Venezuela?
I’m not being provocative. I’d like to hear your opinion.” -brh-

Backrow, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure the US has financed plenty of opposition movements over that past 100 years – generally very right-wing and relatively violent. If that’s what we’re doing in Venezuela then no, hell NO – we shouldn’t be doing it again.

And you’re right – eventually more hell is going to visit us here on the US landmass. Have we staved it off by all our interventions over the years – or have we made it worse. I’ll agree with UFIA – it’s all too far gone to matter, any more.

—————–

Have you ever considered that the country that you and I grew up in, and served – is gone forever? Some jackass will argue that it never existed, but that’s not true.

It did exist. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. You did too, backrow.

“We’re just of different minds about what it means to belong to where we live.”
– ufia, to brh –

I’ll ask you to elaborate on this one, ufia. I belong to the US. I’ll die here, God willing – still helping my family and friends for as long as I can.

I don’t understand the idea that running away to another area of the world is a good idea – or even anything like POSSIBLE, for the huge mass of mankind.

—————————–

“Whatever it is we might have been able to come to terms about with regard to preserving American culture is too far gone to be salvaged. For me, it’s either fight for something entirely new, or let it all go where its headed.” -ufia-

He is a man without a country. Doesn’t want one since it would include other people.

I think Thoreau said New England was about as much as he could feel loyal to. The South is what you have – if you could accept its traditions. Before we can choose we have to know – no easy task in this age of disinformation. America was created by Whites and for Whites. A brief primer of intentionally forgotten history:

That’s all you ever have to say. You’re embarrassing yourself. Read the article and admit the truth: you were sold a bill of shoddy egalitarian goods. The Founders would consider you and your ilk a disgrace.

“I’ll ask you to elaborate on this one, ufia. I belong to the US. I’ll die here, God willing – still helping my family and friends for as long as I can.” -Pro

Same here, in terms of being “settled.” I’ve said as much before. I certainly don’t believe it’d be any different anywhere else, less I were a man of substantial financial means.

=================

I don’t disagree. But what comes next? -Pro
======================

You asking me for a prediction or a suggestion? Not qualified to offer either. What I suspect is that at any given moment, either Russia or the US could make what is considered to be a wrong move and – Boom! Does this mean full out nuclear annihilation…well, what does it matter when it is certain that mass death from war is likely in any case.

What I think is worse is that events may even be out their hands altogether, thus the unmistakably bold moves by every major player we can name. Not to mention the weather factors, man made or otherwise, droughts are gonna demolish bread baskets for certain, plus the overriding energy and material resource realities will force hands in any case.

But I’m speaking only about what governments will do. The people of America will continue to do nothing but complain about what the msm tells them to complain about. See CFN archives. It’s all there. Truth is, these people threw in the towel a long, long time ago; every vote was a tacit endorsement of the corruption …. but saying we love our country/families’ supposedly still has meaning, often the convenient and empty reasons for voting. I don’t know Prog, ever think of siring another baby? Does your mini-clathrate gun still twerk?

Ufia, I’m nearly 60. That means I grew up hiding under school desks while JFK and Khrushchev brought my young life to within a few eyeblinks of nuclear annihilation. That makes the blunderings of Obama et al look like pretty small potatoes, from my perspective.

Regarding the clathrate gun (mini? my ass!) – yeah, it still works, but I won’t be deploying it without permission from my wife. Such permission is unlikely to be forthcoming, any time soon.

Now – if I were young, with a young wife; then I’d definitely think about having two or three kids. Somebody (besides the sociopaths) with brains has to be around when the rubble stops jumping. They might as well carry my genes.

“Not to mention the weather factors, man made or otherwise, droughts are gonna demolish bread baskets for certain, plus the overriding energy and material resource realities will force hands in any case.” – ufia –

Yeah – this sort of stuff gives me pause. I’ve gone as far as looking at land in Idaho and Montana via the internet. And, just the other day I was looking for land that controlled an entrance to a natural cave. Probably the only thing that would pry my scrawny behind out of the Southeast would be ecosystem collapse due to catastrophic climate change. Even at that – I’d probably go like Granny from the Clampets, riding shotgun on top of the load, and under protest.

If things do go awry in the near term, and my elders can’t afford to care for themselves thanks to the stealing of what little retirement they have by the gov., that’s pretty much the ballgame. I’ve come to terms with the possibility.

Beyond the climate controversy, I think its absolutely true the Arctic seasonal ice-free window will begin in less than two years and continuously widen from then on. The fan belt on the air conditioner is seriously frayed and mankind’s duct tape doesn’t work on everything. As the ramifications of that play out, living conditions will forcibly decline, everywhere. I’m not sure a cave dwelling offers much of a buffer.

So let’s say kiddos born today have about a thirty-year window of some type of livelihood. Is it truly a loving gesture to bring someone into that world? A literal hell? I’m asking because I’m really not sure. I’m open to persuasion. I wonder if your generation “knew” what type of future was emerging 30-40 years ago, would they have felt the same about procreating just to pass on them “good” genes? There’s no right answer here.

Moore is correct in saying that Global Cooling would be far more devastating. If warming was occurring, it could be adapted to. Cooling would cause the death of millions. Real clarity from Moore, rare in a public figure. No wonder he was driven out of Environmentalism by Leftists.

I’m going to be on the road for most of the weekend.
Janos, this one’s for you. If you ever want to think about marrying outside of your race – she’d be the girl for you.
Female, black, and Muslim.
Y’all would have a lot to talk about.

“4. For example, if Sen. Obama is elected president this means that the days of crying to Whites about racism are OVER. For real. They won’t entertain that noise anymore. They will say that racism can’t be that bad—after all, a Black (sort-of) man was elected president.” – excerpt –

“White male-dominated law enforcement is the only thing currently standing between the Black women and girls who live in Black neighborhoods and mass rape. More African-American women need to remember that before having knee-jerk anti-police reactions.” – excerpt –

So who has a direct interest in the outcome of this re-drawing of borders in the Ukraine? Who is geographically closest to the action? Who has the means to duke it out with Putin? Who isn’t in his pocket?

So let’s look at a map: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus, the Baltic republics, Romania, Moldova are all cheek by jowl. A bit further away: Germany, Turkey, the Czechs, Austria. And Finland.

The USA has to overfly a lot of ocean and land to get to where stuff is happening. Which means even if Obama and Congress and the joint chiefs were nuts enough to try, it would require logistical heavy lifting to get there even with a token force.

Nope, the map says nyet. Not do-able.

Even if it were do-able you’d have to go toe to toe with the Russian army. And, as history has repeatedly shown, Ivan is a patriot, 25 million gave up the ghost in defense of the homeland a few generations ago.

There was a warning issued when the US invaded Iraq, that there would be a six month window where the Iraqis would welcome liberation from Saddam. But the welcome would wear out and after that brief time, Iraqis would start to fight US forces. Which is pretty much what happened.

Now, the Ukraine isn’t Iraq. But put yourself in their shoes, to push back against the Russkis and maybe push them out only to cede sovereignty to Americans? If the US were crazy enough to go in it could end up fighting Ukrainians.

So, who could help? Who has the means? Germany? Nope. Maybe financial and material support to Ukrainian forces but no way in hell will there be German troops. I seriously doubt after what happened in WW2 the Ukrainians would have it.

Poland? Maybe, the Poles have legitimate historical bones to pick with Russia especially after the USSR made a deal with Hitler to partition Poland. Let’s not forget the Soviet role in starting WW2. And the Katyn Massacre.

The Czechs and Slovaks? Sure. Remember 1968, Prague, Dubcek, a settling of scores.

Hungary? Them too. Remember the 1956 uprising and the brutal Soviet crackdown.

And Finland, who was invaded by the USSR and who suffered mightily in that war.

However, co-ordinating among all these disparate peoples and forces I would think is pretty much impossible. Even if there are bitter memories and hatred and fear of the Russians, would any of these countries be able to muster the will to go to war?

I think it highly unlikely. Maybe it goes as far as moral support, money, munitions. At the end of the day this boils down to a showdown between Ukraine and Russia over borders. And maybe some really nasty Yugoslav style ethnic cleansing. But that’s all. The likelihood of re-incorporating ALL of the Ukraine into another iteration of the Russian Empire looks to me a long-shot.

Would Putin actually try what Leopoldo Galtieri tried in the Falklands? You know, to distract the people he mis-governed and to re-direct their hatreds. The Malvinas could have been Argentina’s, they should have been Argentina’s. I think Putin is doing that.

Would Putin be dumb enough to provoke a major conflagration to buttress his own position in Russia? He might. Stupider things have happened.

Schemes and calculations go to crap, people never do what you think they’ll do. Everybody ie Obama, Kerry, Putin, Merkel and the Ukrainians should keep that in mind.

“Even if it were do-able you’d have to go toe to toe with the Russian army.” — volodya

Nyet. This is 20th century thinking. Russia needs USA and EU markets. Russia’s economy is not that strong. Russia can be brought down without firing a shot through asset freezes and economic sanctions. That is how the USSR was brought down. The centralized, corrupt and organized-crime laden economy of Russia is no stronger than the USSR was. Putin wants to bring back all the soviet satellite countries that broke away. Somebody should tell Putin about how the future is “tribal” and “local” (current CFN dogma).

I think globalism and multiculturalism is the future. Nationalism/tribalism is the author of madness. (see the 20th century for examples)

Let us try and keep our eyes on the prize here, please.
While in my usual pursuit of mucking out the Augean stables, I came across this neat little encapsulation of what it’s all about [Alfie] in a sequestered stall of the prize breeding ox, “Proper Gander”. ;o)
I nearly missed it, as it was buried under an unusually prodigious pile of thou-thee-and-me-sayeth-all-manner-of-crapola. (Yes, some things are just simpler than they at first appear… which would be the point of all the current mis-direction.)

Let’s hope that “the haircut on search for a brain” and his even less able colleges in the governments and “quality media” in North America and Western Europe get the message early enough, to calm down and stop provoking the Russians.
In Germany they have a saga from an invincible hero called Siegfried. He had taken a bath in the blood of a dragon which made his skin inpermiable for weapons. But when he took that bath an oak leave prevented a small spot on his shoulder from becoming protected. Finally, after many years, an enemy who came to know the spot of vulnerability killed the apparently invincible hero from behind by stabbing him with his speer, precisely into the vulnerable spot.
Western societies have some vulnerable spots. One is the dependency on electronics and an electrical grid that can be destroyed by an EMP.

Ozone, the scheme has way too many interlocking wheels. Why not just cut to the chase? If the motive is to control the oil then why not just control the oil?

That is to say, bypass all the unnecessary steps and declare war on some pretext or other, bomb Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Iran to oblivion, land the army and marines and get the oil fields.

It’s not as if howlers haven’t been told before (WMDs) to justify war-making. So tell more. You can even use the WMD yarn. Not as if Iranian nuclear ambitions are a secret so there’s the element of truthiness.

Or better still, tell the truth. That this war is to grab control of middle eastern oil.

Now that you’ve told that basic truth, you pound the tribal war drums, that you are fighting historic enemies, hostile people that hate Americans and what America stands for, imperialists that want to spread their anti-democratic, anti-Christian and anti-American ways. It’s not as if this hasn’t been told before.

You can even say that America, as the long-time guarantor of world peace and stability (don’t laugh), is entitled to a secure supply of oil. But for accidents of history that oil could have been America’s and it SHOULD have been America’s. So there.

How did Iraq go so wrong? The US wasn’t ruthless enough. So that mistake won’t be made again.

There’s no approach like the direct approach, don’t you think?

Wars are about a lot of things but mostly they’re about grabbing land and resources, that is, robbery on a massive scale. And that’s the essential truth you are telling here.

It is not all about oil. Obama and the EU have Putin running scared. Putin knows how vulnerable he is because the Russian economy suffers from low productivity, Soviet-level industry, a declining working population, corruption, capital flight, a brain drain, etc.

Last year, capital flight by Russia’s elite — the money they send out of the country — amounted to about $15.5-billion. In January this year, another $4.2-billion flew out of Russia. Financial analysts believe on the back of the Ukraine invasion that number has soared. It is just one indication of where the Russian president is extremely vulnerable — the economy, not oil. Bringing the Russian economy to its knees is precisely what Obama and the EU are planning. Just watch.

But AJ, why do we even care about Russia at all? Or China for that matter. It’s because they are trying to control valuable resources. Whether or not Russia is economically vulnerable is, at most, a means towards an end. That end

But AJ, why do we even care about Russia at all? Or China for that matter. It’s because they are trying to control valuable resources. Exploiting a possible Russian economic weakness is, at most, a means towards an end. That end is to obtain as much natural resources as we can to maintain our standard of living and our power for as long as we can.

When we finally get online with nuclear fusion/thorium reactors/affordable solar power, etc., who will care about the Middle East or Eastern Europe or Russia or China? Sure as hell not us.

Who can forget the video of US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s press conference while standing near a giant Chevron sign, boasting about the $5 billion bribes invested in Ukrainian “democracy.” It’s almost too simplistic to say the entirety of recent events can be reduced down to a struggle to dominate oil riches, but maybe that’s the beauty of the whole tragedy. Humans were never as noble as they glorified themselves to be. And this little excerpt form a piece linked by ‘Zone today demonstrates the pettiness of this species yet again:

“So, the upheaval in Ukraine is really about the U.S. trying to weaken Syria’s patron, Russia. If Russia is weakened, Syria is weakened. If Syria is weakened, Iran is weakened. If Iran is weakened, the U.S. has a better chance of seizing control of the world’s largest reserves of oil. That is the Great Game that is going on here.

The problem is the risk of escalation. It’s not at all fanciful to imagine some ambitious Ukrainian colonel firing at Russian forces. Russia fires back, decisively. This puts Ukraine at risk for its European suitor, the EU. So NATO intervenes to try to intimidate Russia. Russia retaliates to blacken NATO’s nose. And before anyone knows it, the U.S. is dragged into a shooting war where no one can understand how it ends. This is almost exactly how World War I started.” – Robert Freeman
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In fact, I think material from James Rickards and Pepe Escobar were most helpful to me months ago when I was struggling for the broad view understanding of all this. Anyhow, I say the currency wars and proxy wars have about ran their course, so these late moves by Russia and America, and all the other global powers on the move for pillage and plunder, make this conflict par for the course of human history. However, I don’t buy the Putin as Hitler meme for a second. I do see the incidental commonalities between this and previous world war build ups, though.

One thing is unmistakable: the incremental march toward the exact sorts of showdowns people like JHK have been calling for are still underway, even if not on a precise schedule. Was there ever a point in History when clever apes were not fighting over watering holes?

“Exploiting a possible Russian economic weakness is, at most, a means towards an end. That end is to obtain as much natural resources as we can to maintain our standard of living and our power for as long as we can.” — Beantown

If y’all are going to make these arguments about oil, then you should provide some historical evidence.

CFN said we were going into Iraq for O I L … period. That was the reason: O I L.

We built fourteen bases in Iraq. We were going to be there forever, according to CFN, sipping the light crude O I L out of the Iraqi sands. Why, it was going to pay all the costs for the “cakewalk” of taking out Sadaam.

Yet, none of that happened. The bases? Abandoned? The troops? Gone. The O I L? Not in our hands.

If we need to take over oil fields, we would NOT go halfway around the world and pick a fight with a Super Power. We have plenty of oil fields in poor countries in our own backyard (western hemisphere) in countries that are so disorganized and brainwashed by our media that their people would probably welcome our invasion.

What you are saying makes no sense at all. You do not want to have a supply chain that spans the globe. You do NOT want to piss off Russia or China, both of them having nuclear weapons, no matter how desperate you are for O I L .

Well, I’ve been in the US for business for about 3 weeks now after an extended hiatus abroad for several years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the Americans are totally insane–a bit like deer standing in the middle of the highway mesmerized by the headlights of on-coming traffic.

Lots of people looking for politically-correct insult. I had a black bloke at the supermarket check out who literally to offense when I bought a can of black Kiwi brand shoeshine polish. (I bought it because I needed to shine my shoes.) True story….

I wonder if it might help if the government required that all “nozzles” at “The Filling Stations” (“Petrol Stations” to you Brits) be shaped to look like Penises?

You might be jumping to conclusions – based on your White privilege. Maybe he was a patriot who didn’t like you buying a Kiwi product and not an American one. Remember what Nagarjuna said:

“As a water vessel is
Variously perceived by beings:
Nectar to celestials,
Is for a man pure drinking water,
While to the hungry ghosts it seems
A putrid ooze of blood and pus,
Is for the water Serpent-spirits
And the fish, a place to live in,
While it is space to gods who dwell
In the sphere of infinite space;
So any objects live or dead,
Within the person or without-
Differently is seen by by beings
According to their fruits of Kamma.

Detroit is building Muscle Cars once again, yes, powerful Dodge Chargers and Ford Mustangs, not as many as in the halcyon days back in ’69, my neighbor has a new Mustang modeled after Shelby coupe, 8 cylinder, over 300 bhp, 4 speed positraction, glasspack mufflers, you should heat that baby purr – a low roar – when he puts that hammer down and shifts thru all 4 gears its like a symphony, whew!!!

One could be excused for thinking that everything is on a smooth glide-path for freedom and democracy by the facts that Obama is vacationing at an exclusive resort in Florida (“workin’ hard” on the phone however) and our man Yats has taken his hand off the tiller of the Ukrainian coup coalition to flit his way into the loving embrace of his us state dept. handlers. No chance we’ll get the real skinny on what his orders might be this time, as they’ll be handed over old-school, ie, face to face. (Can’t have anymore of those leaky ol’ phone conversations overheard and spread around the world, now can we?)

See, “It’s all Good!” [tm JHK]………… go back to sleep america, think tanks are hard at work shaping the opinions you’ll soon be needing to hold dear.

Mike Whitney faces the music, and it has the ominous flavor of a slasher/horror film soundtrack.

“Don’t kid yourself, it’s all about oil. Oil and power. The United States imperial ambitions are thoroughly marinated in oil, access to oil, and control of oil. Without oil, there’s no empire, no dollar hegemony, no overbloated, bullyboy military throwing weaker countries against the wall and extorting tribute. Oil is the coin of the realm, the path to global domination.

Putin has [the] audacity to think that the oil beneath Russian soil belongs to Russia. Washington wants to change his mind about that. And that’s why the situation in Ukraine is so dangerous, because the voracious thirst for oil is pushing us all towards another world war.”

**If you should have any further questions in this regard, go to Helen Waite at the state dept. I’m sure they’ll be answered forthrightly and promptly… uh… maybe.

Good one, BRH. :o)
…But only if Z’biggy’s megalomaniacal dreams come true and we don’t happen to drown in a sea of blood in the meantime. Perhaps we should have a serious sit-and-ponder on what keeping things in BAU mode is going to “cost” the commonweal. …Or, maybe not. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

“Unless we are willing to go to war for Ukraine—and I believe that would be unwise—Russia without question has the military might and geographic advantage to control the Crimea and the Russian dominated areas of Ukraine.

But at what cost? Russia’s stock market is dropping precipitously and their economy is quite dependent on exports that depend on a stable Ukraine.

Likely, the cost will be universal condemnation from Europe and America and isolation from trade and the benefits of behaving and participating in the civilized world.

Does Putin care? Perhaps not. Maybe flexing muscle may impress maidens in Sochi but perhaps not the 14-year old men of the Maidan. A Ukrainian teenager with $200 of explosives and a burning desire to thwart the Russian bear can disrupt a pipeline. 80 percent of Russia’s oil and gas traverses Ukraine.” — Rand Paul

Obama and the EU don’t even have to “work hard” on this one. Putin is toast.

Harrying Mexico with knife and gun? If only. But enough of that. Here is Emerson, a very fine poet at his best in addition to his essays which are some of the best in the English language. Here is his famous condemnation of imperialism and genocide in verse.

Prog: I will not marry a Munky. But I grant you that she has been lifted up and ennobled by Islam. Real Christianity once did the same thing. Maybe we should all convert to one or the other or Something. These young girls now are foolish sluts and the boys are clueless thugs or fags.

Remember Christ’s parable of the talents. To whom much is given much is asked. Blacks, being given less, will be judged far less harshly.

“Today’s best systems are heat-assisted, but they use lasers, which involves a lot of heat. But with this new material, you barely need to heat it by 20 degrees (Kelvin) to get a five-fold change in coercivity (magnetic resistance),” he told the conference.

Technology taking another victory lap. Coming to a future near you, whether you like it or not.

Another radical improvement in energy use. We are in the age of energy ascent.

We soar high, high above your doubts and shortsightedness into the dawning of an age of energy ascent and superabundance.

Longtime reader here and I must agree to an extent that the tone gets a bit doom-laden at times relative to what’s truly being innovated.

Still though it is important to note that should the fossil fuels become scarce to the degree described by the members it will cause some hiccups for sure here in America.

Americans are very dependent on that in my area, there is no public transit system worth a damn that is prepared to field the kind of traffic that is routine now.

Luckily I think investment in solar and other renewables is high on the national scale though I honestly haven’t looked to be sure. But given what you cited about the advances of said in Germany it’s definitely something to be optimistic about, considering.

Anyway fwiw I do appreciate your contrarian views rueb, thanks for the info.

If I’m not mistaken solar and wind still amount to less than 3% of total energy creation; solar, wind and hydro combined come to about 8%. (in the US)

I was listening to some chirpy little undergrad being interviewed on public radio; her cause is getting colleges and universities to divest from oil and natural gas companies. She was convinced the country could be powered up using renewables and the only thing preventing this happy state of affairs is Exxon and BP.

Its already 2014. i’ve been hearing about renewables for 4 decades. How would you keep the lights on and the trucks running in Chicago or NY using windmills and solar panels. People would end up freezing to death, starving to death. If you think about it the whole idea seems absurd.

If you look at the white people, you’ll notice that the men and the women look almost exactly the same. They would be exactly the same but for gender. They seem to try to minimize any gender difference and sexuality. Almost like hermaphrodites.

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Too Much Magic

Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation

The nationally best-selling author of "The Long Emergency" expands on his alarming argument that our oil-addicted, technology-dependent society is on the brink of collapse—that the long emergency has already begun. Published by the Atlantic Monthly Press.